I just discovered the board but have been the owner of this Slick for 30 years.

Well, technically. My father put my name on the title of the truck when he purchased it in 1988. I was 6 at the time. He drove it to work for the next 10 years and then I drove it when I turned 16. I basically grew up in this truck. It's a 2wd 1965 Custom Cab Short Bed with 240 inline 6 and 3 speed. It has 80K miles and this is the original paint.

When I was 12 or 13, we would occasionally drive by a 68 Thunderbird a couple of towns over and my father would mention how he wanted to do an engine swap. It had a 429 and he had owned one like it when my parents first got married. This went on for a few years and one day when we drove by, the car was gone. It had either sold or got hauled off for scrap. I ended up driving the truck when I was 16, so it's probably for the best that it didn't have a big block in it.

Fast forward 20 years. Last fall, I drove the truck to the Ol' Marinas Car show in Ottawa, Kansas. If you haven't been, it's probably the coolest car show on the planet.

Anyways, the next day I was in Kansas City and found out my father in law's friend had a 429 with C6 in a shed that was pulled from a 71 Lincoln. He had owned it for 25 or 30 years. I went to look at it with cash in hand and bought it on the spot. We drove home with the engine, transmission and an engine stand in the back of the truck. It was squatting pretty good, going down 1-70.

This is what the 429 looked like after removing the C6 and mounting it to the engine stand.

Pretty crusty.

It was stripped down to the bare block for inspection and a thorough cleaning.

Everything was measured, inspected, and replaced if necessary. I have a very understanding wife that allows me to use the dinner table for projects. It was about 20 degrees outside at this point, so it was appreciated.

Over the next couple of months, I bought a bunch of parts to completely rebuild the engine. It seemed like Summit boxes were arriving weekly for a while. I found a set of D0VE heads on craigslist to bring the 71 back to life. If you have ever wondered why compression on the D0VE heads is so much higher than the D2VE heads, take a look at this picture.

With a bunch of new parts, it was time to start putting it back together. This is what it looked like with the long block assembled and a fresh coat of paint.

I started checking Craigslist almost daily looking for parts at this point. I found a Crown Vic front suspension and 2 rear ends, one with the gears I wanted, and another with Limited Slip. I bought everything in a lot.

Next I was looking for a set of Bullit wheels. I had a hard time finding ones in decent shape for what I was willing to spend. I switched my search up to just looking for Mustang wheels and after a couple of weeks, I stumbled across the jackpot. These are Carroll Shelby 20x10 front and 20x12 rear wheels. I bought them from a guy that was switching the wheels on his GT500 Super Snake. Needless to say, I knew these were going to look great.

As you can see in the background, I had already started tearing down the front end and media blasted the firewall.

Using my plasma and welder, I boxed in the frame, painted everything satin black and installed the Crown Vic front suspension.

I wanted to keep the truck a manual transmission. After being turned off by the going rate of most transmissions, I decided to just buy a whole truck with the transmission I wanted. I found a 2wd 88 F250 with 460 and ZF5 transmission. My father in law and I removed the engine, transmission and several other parts and then resold the truck on Craigslist. It was a lot of work, but I ended up with the transmission for basically free.

Not a great photo, as it was pretty late, but this is the engine bay. If you notice, it's a recurring theme in my photos. I'm a night and weekender on the truck.

I got the front end back together and the door/hood/fender gaps lined up.

Primed the oil.

I broke in the cam. If I can figure out how to post a video, I will. The exhaust sounds fantastic.

Next up is the rear end.

I have two crown vic rear ends. One has limited slip with 3.55 gears, and the other is an open 3.27. The ZF Transmission is geared very low, so I'm going to go with the 3.27 gears. I'll swap them into the other rear end.

But it's not as simple as that. I'm also going to narrow the rear end to allow the 12" wide tires to fit. These are both 03+ Crown Vic rear ends, so they are few inches wider than the earlier ones. I got the front and both rears for a song, so I decided to make this work. I'm going to put an Explorer axle on one side and shorten the tube to match. This will narrow the rear end 3.75" and I'll have 1" clearance on each side.

After that will be a pretty straightforward spring under and a c-notch.

Slight change to the rear end plan. Turns out the Explorer axle shafts have a larger diameter at the end, which requires a larger seal and bearing, and it won't work by simply shortening the Crown Vic housing. I found a moser 31 spline 99-04 Mustang axle shaft for around the same price. It's on the way.

Also, my plan to switch the 3.55 gears to 3.27 is shot as the 3.55's were in much better condition. I used a RPM calculator and determined there wasn't much benefit with the higher gears anyways. If top speed is actually what it says it will be, I should probably take it to the Bonneville Salt Flats....

My family watched the eclipse on the driveway today. Here is a shot of the truck at totality. It was honestly one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

Thanks guys. I have a pretty awesome wife. Her family has always had old cars/projects, so she thinks it's normal.

I got the Moser 31 spline 99-04 Mustang axle shaft in the mail. After taking some measurements, I came up with a measurement of 3 5/8" to shorten the Crown Vic Housing.

I made the cuts and was getting ready to weld back together and realized I was out of welding gas. Great to figure out early on a Saturday, when Praxair doesn't open until Monday morning....

Anyways, there are a bunch of other things to get done, so I removed the existing rear end. I'm pretty sure this is the point where you find out if you have neighbors that are cool or not.

I rolled a wheel under it and lowered to see how it was going to look completed. I'm happy.

I changed directions on the rear suspension. After looking at the condition of the leaf springs, and pricing out the drop kits, I decided to just go with coilovers. I was planning to do this eventually and it just didn't make sense to spend money on something I would replace later anyways.

I bought a kit from Total Cost Involved. I'm planning to do the occasional SCCA event and every little bit helps.

The plan is to get some welding gas Monday and install the rear end this week.

After that, I'll measure for a driveshaft, run brake lines, and hopefully receive/install my Ididit steering column, that I've been getting the runaround on for a month.

I got the housing welded and did a test fit on the Moser mustang axle shaft. Everything appears to fit.

With the help of RustNdust65, I removed the bed to make it easier to remove the old brackets. I figured I'd clean up and paint the frame while I was at it. After a few hours with a wire wheel, self etching primer, and some satin black rustoleum, I'm happy.

With the long weekend, I have some extra time to get stuff knocked out, so hopefully the next post shows an installed rear end.

The Ididit column came this week. I ordered a can of Marlin blue from paintscratch.com to paint it. I'll post some pictures to hopefully show that it matches....

I also went a bit overboard and spent some money with Classic Instruments. I'll have the gauge combo next weekend.

I had to stop to eat some lunch, so I thought I would post a couple of updates.

I picked up a set of 3 point seatbelts from Wesco. Not a perfect match, but pretty close. This is the original factory seat. I had kicked around the idea of making it a Ranger clone, but I wanted factory original blue mustang seats to match, and never found any. It would be a shame to pull this seat anyways. It's in almost mint condition.

Still working on the 4-link. Since the TCI kit is really not designed for a 65-66, I'm making sure to get it just right before drilling/welding it on. I'll post measurements when it's complete to save time for the next guy to do this.

The Classic Instruments gauge showed up this week. I love the way it looks in the dash cluster I picked up off eBay.

And my aerosol can of Marlin Blue from Paintscratch.com came last night. The top has a coat of Rustoleum Crystal Clear on it. This paint is spot on. I'm blown away that they can match a color this well with a can of spray paint.

I've decided to change the upper shock mounts and crossmember on the Total Cost Involved kit. Their crossmember will result in the shocks hitting the frame and the crossmember looks like it would crack the frame with time. It's only held in by 2 vertical bolts. I'm going to box the frame and run a piece of 2x4" tube across.

Knowing this, I cannot recommend their kit for 65-66 F100s. I went this route after speaking to them on the phone and being assured that it would work. I can make pretty much anything work with a plasma and welder, but paying a premium for convenience and getting none is really frustrating.

It's been a bit slow going, but I'm off the jackstands. I got the upper shock mounts made and installed, the driveshaft hooked up, and the exhaust system put together.

I need make a couple of angle iron brackets for the brake lines, rig up the Crown Vic parking brake to work with the original pull cable, and then it will be time to get the bed back on. I may end up with some stainless tips on the exhaust, but will wait to see how it looks with the bed on.

If anyone is actually reading this and would like to see more posts, please let me know.

Ryan,

Beautiful truck you are building, yes please post more, the forum has traffic but not a lot of posts or comments, probably the time of year everyone is out doing projects not sitting at their computer, I can tell my thread gets lots of views but not a lot of comments, maybe everyone is just shy? lol

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